28 January 2014

Birthdays
Elijah Wood b. 1981 (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Sin City, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Spy Kids, The Faculty, Deep Impact, Back to the Future Part II)
Ty Olsson b. 1974 (Nerds and Monsters, Supernatural, Twilight, Arrow, Falling Skies, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Eureka, V, 2012, Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Flash Gordon [TV], Stargate SG-1, Andromeda, X-Men 2, Jeremiah, Dark Angel, Lake Placid, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids [TV], The X-Files)
Melody Perkins b. 1974 (Power Rangers, Planet of the Apes, Charmed)
Lee Ingleby b. 1976 (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
Kathryn Morris b. 1969 (Paycheck, Minority Report, A.I Artificial Intelligence, Xena: Warrior Princess, Poltergeist: The Legacy)
Frank Darabont b. 1959 (writer/director, The Green Mile, The Walking Dead)
Harley Jane Kozak b. 1957 (Stargate SG-1, Dark Planet, Arachnophobia)
John Beck b. 1943 (Dark Planet, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Audrey Rose, Sleeper, Cyborg 2087, Rollerball, The Time Machine [1978])
Lewis Wilson b. 1920 died 9 August 2000 (Batman [1943])

Last year, Elijah Wood had the Picture Slot and he certainly deserves it, since his best known work is as the star of a genre blockbuster. I could have gone with Frank Darabont since The Walking Dead is so popular. I could have a picture of Lewis Wilson as the very first Batman on film. Ty Olsson has a huge number of credits, but he has the 21st Century advantage of being born in Canada, where a lot of sci-fi TV is filmed nowadays and contracts stipulate a certain number of local actors. This year, I decided to go with John Beck playing Moonpie, James Caan's wingman in the 1975 version of Rollerball for several strong reasons.

1. The character's name was Moonpie!
2. Rollerball is supposed to be set in 2018, so it is definitely apropos for this blog, more so than Tolkien.
3. Moonpie was supposed to be secondary compared to Jonathan, but I never believed for a second James Caan could take John Beck in a fight, fair or otherwise.
4. 1970s Pornstache. There were bigger stars with 1970s pornstaches, (Elliot Gould and Tom Selleck come to mind, as do some actual pornstars) but John Beck rocked his pretty hard. Maybe this should have been reason #1. Let's just call it reasons #4 through #20 and leave it at that.

Many happy returns to all the living on the list and to the late Lewis Wilson, thanks for being a pioneer.
 

Predictor: Ray Kurzweil in his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines,

Prediction: By 2009, a $1000 personal computer can perform about a trillion calculations per second.

Reality: When he writes "calculation per second", this is usually translated to "floating point operation per second", shortened to "flops". The PS3 in 2010 was at the $500 price point and was at about 250 billion flops. The PS4 broke the trillion flop barrier in 2013 for the requested price point.

Things Kurzweil predicted aren't impossible, but he's very early with most of them. His vision of 2009 looks a lot like 2014 actually is, though some of his predictions are still in the future. He expected technology to go about half again as fast as it actually did.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

As usual, we go back on Wednesdays to 1905. Let's see if T. Baron Russell can spot Kurzweil 94 years but be more accurate.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!